In recent years, significant improvements have been made in the quality of musical instruments, particularly electric instruments such as electric guitars and electric bass guitars. However, the majority of the improvements that have occurred in such instruments are due to improvements made in the electronic components used with such instruments. These electronic components include pickups, amplifiers and special effects. One component of a musical instrument that has remained virtually unchanged since the first electric instruments were introduced is the instrument bridge.
A bridge on a musical instrument is designed to support a set of strings at a predetermined distance above the instrument's fretboard. It has been discovered that prior art bridges are the source of, or at least contribute to, three errors in the production of sound from an instrument. The first error is interstring modulation, whereby striking one string causes another string on the instrument to vibrate. If the pitch of the vibrating strings are not harmonically related, such interstring modulation can produce unclear, distorted sounds. The second problem associated with traditional instrument bridges is the fact that they dampen a string's vibration once it is played. This is particularly true of tremolo-type bridges that are coupled to the body of a musical instrument via one or more springs. These springs dissipate a portion of the energy of a plucked string, thereby reducing the sustain of a note played. The third problem contributed by prior art bridge designs is the signal distortion that occurs after the string is struck. When a string is initially struck, the string moves back and forth in a plane that is substantially parallel to the front face of a musical instrument and perpendicular to a magnetic field produced by an instrument pickup. This parallel movement produces the cleanest sound with the fewest undertones and overtones. However, shortly after the string is struck, the plane in which the string is vibrating begins to rotate in an elliptical fashion. As the plane of the string vibration changes, the signal produced by the pickup begins to sound slightly distorted.
In order to solve the problems associated with prior art bridge designs, there is a need for a musical instrument bridge that reduces interstring modulation, does not excessively dampen a string's vibration and confines a string's vibration to a single plane that is substantially perpendicular to the direction of a magnetic field produced by a pickup.